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Well, people have been using that word, or one very like it, for seven hundred years or so, with pretty much the same meaning. Originally it meant "lovable"; at a certain point it transmuted into "having properties that make something lovable" (ie, beautiful, or wonderful), though no one really could tell you precisely why -- language works like that a lot: it just kind of drifts.

There are some obvious examples of linguistic drift that are kind of similar but more current. For instance, the word "hopefully" has come to mean "one hopes" rather than (or maybe in addition to) "full of hope". Here:

Hopefully, the Mets will find some pitching and not lose 100 games this year.

vs.

The Mets hopefully put Santana on the mound on Opening Day.

Until not that long ago, the former usage would have been incorrect: "hopefully" meant only "full of hope". The language has drifted, though.

Anyway, this is probably what happened with "lovely", which was originally a noun that was adjectivized ("love" - "lovely") to mean "affectionate or lovable". What's remarkable is how consistent its meaning has been for the last 700 years.

(Also, in 1300, the word would have been spelled luflic -- inasmuch as there was a standard spelling --, but said largely the same way.)

I like how there are "rules" which each language seems to follow as it drifts. For instance, (I'm going to just make something up), in English the U sound becomes more like an O sound in certain words, but in German the U sound becomes more like an E. This is why certain words are similar ("one" and "ein"), yet a little different. By tracing the vowel and consonant shifts, they can determine what the word sounded like in the root language (something more like "Un"). And of course the root Anglo-Germanic language split from the Spanish at an even earlier time, and they say it like "Uno".

A word like "one" is a good one to trace, because it's universal, and not likely to change.

Someone traced back all the European languages (using words that would be universal, like "head" or "moon"), and formulated what the original proto-Indo_European language would have sounded like 10,000 years ago.

Just got this in my email. I subscribe to the online AP Stylebook, so they let you know when they change a style rule or make up a new one. Timely.

An updated entry has been added to AP Stylebook Online.

hopefully

The traditional meaning is in a hopeful manner. Also acceptable is the modern usage: it's hoped, we hope.
Correct: "You're leaving soon?" she asked hopefully.
Correct: Hopefully, we'll be home before dark.

In other words, until today it was incorrect to use the modern usage in a newspaper or on a newspaper website.